CollectionCare · Innovative and affordable service for the Preventive Conservation monitoring of individual Cultural Artefacts during display, storage, handling and transport

Degradation of a cultural artefact depends on the environmental stress over time, especially during fluctuating environmental conditions, and the reactive behaviours of the materials of its composition. For an effective preventive conservation (PC) it is key to consider the historic environmental stress and degradation kinetics of the different materials (and their synergies) and monitor the artefact at all times. However, due to the heterogeneity of the material nature of the artefacts, this requires expensive monitoring as well as specialized personnel, out of reach for most, small to medium sized museums.CollectionCare will develop an innovative PC decision support system targeting the needs of small-medium sized museums. It will integrate IoT monitoring of the microclimatology of each artefact at any place, either at display, storage, handling or transport, integrated with multi-scale modelling for the different artefact materials while complying with current PC norms and recommendations. We will integrate latest advances in sensoring electronics, LPWAN wireless communication, multi-scale and multi-material degradation knowledge, big data and cloud computing into a single affordable system, adapted to the specific needs and resources of small museums and collections.The solution will built on the knowledge of different renown research groups and companies in the fields of PC (KADK, TU/e, LSIWC, UW, URO1, JHI and UPV), cloud computing and big data (ATOS), IoT connectivity (SGF), wireless sensoring (UPV, URO1), artefact transport (CBC, HvK), collection management (PS) as well as a large number of museums to guarantee future market acceptance (DFA-Spain, KMKG-Belgium, IVC-Spain, OAML-Latvia, IEEE-Greece, RDC-Denmark).The project will also count on a strong International Cooperation by an external Advisory Board of experts with prominent professional background from prestigious institutions and enterprises like: GCI, CCI, ICCROM, ICOMOS, Hispania Nostra and AXA ART.